Psychological ownership is considered as one of the important employee-organization linkages. Many studies have empirically demonstrated its favorable workplace outcomes, yet the research on its antecedents is relatively limited, particularly in the Indian context. This paper aims to reduce these gaps. It investigates the role of perceived organizational and supervisory support as antecedents to two distinct forms of psychological ownership (job focused and organization focused) in a sample of 162 IT professionals from India. The results indicate that the former is variously related to two forms of psychological ownership. Also, relationship between perceived supervisory support and both forms of psychological ownership was mediated by perceived organizational support. Practical implications of these results are discussed and future research pathways are suggested.

Description

The dynamics of today’s socioeconomic scenario puts tremendous pressure on organizational performance (Mohrman and Cohen, 1995). Political instability and uncertainty in global trade patterns, coupled with stagnation in bigger economies, call for an altogether new business outlook. These issues caught the attention of many scholars during the last decade. For example, Rousseau and Shperling (2003) pointed out the changing business environment and the ensuing change in employees’ psychological contract. They opined that the traditional views about employment relationship (based on the mechanical quid pro quo) would no longer be sufficient for sustaining the competitive advantage and stronger linkages would be required. They offered greater workforce participation and ownership as remedial measures for achieving the desired state. Pierce et al. (2003) proposed that psychological ownership, a feeling of MINE, could address most of the issues mentioned above. They suggested that one with ownership feeling tends to take greater care of one’s organization.

The concept of psychological ownership has captured the imagination of both the academicians and practitioners (Brown, 1989; Peters, 1989; Stayer, 1990; and O’Reilly, 2002). It is the feeling of possessiveness which may be directed towards material or immaterial object or target. Psychological ownership has many desirable workplace outcomes, like job satisfaction, organizational commitment (Van and Pierce, 2004), organizational identity (Belk, 1988; and Dittmar, 1992), behaviors (Issacs, 1933; and O’Toole, 1979) like citizenship behavior (Vandewalle et al., 1995) and performance (Bernstein, 1976).

Scholars have expressed their concerns on the fact that relatively limited research efforts have been directed towards identification of antecedents of psychological ownership (Chi and Han, 2008; and Bernhard and O’Driscoll, 2011) as compared to consequences. We aim to address this concern here by empirically testing the role of Perceived Organizational Support (POS) and Perceived Supervisor Support (PSS) as antecedents, which are employees' perception about the support from the organization and the supervisor respectively. We also analyze the impact of POS and PSS on two different forms of ownerships—one focused on the entire organization and the other on the job.

The present study contributes to the concept of psychological ownership by further extending its nomological network and strengthening its external validity in relatively sparse Indian context.